Sandalwood, beats White, sees a sparkling silver lining

High School Football

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With the end of his sophomore season just a few minutes old, Sandalwood running back Jacari Graham was interested in one thing — looking ahead at a promising future and not back at one that didn’t quite pan out.

The Saints (7-3) put the finishing touches on a wildly up-and-down season with a 12-10 victory over rival White on Friday night, a regular-season finale that was disappointing on one hand and exciting on another.

Sandalwood dodged the Commanders’ shot at a victory when kicker Joshua Davidson’s 47-yard field goal came up short with just under a minute to play.

The Saints kneeled twice to burn the remaining time off the clock and then blindsided coach Adam Geis with a Gatorade cooler full of water that left him dripping wet and already talking about next season.

With players such as Graham, quarterback D.J. Davis and major college defensive prospects Kain Daub and Blake McClain, it’s a promising future.

“It was an interesting season,” said Graham, a 5-foot-9, 220-pound, straight-ahead runner. “We made the best of it after that [being eliminated from the playoffs]. I enjoyed the season; it was fun. I think we’ll pull it off next year.”

The consolation, if there were one, is that Sandalwood salvaged a 7-3 record from a season that could’ve easily gone in the tank following some major letdowns. The Saints had one of the biggest emotional wins in program history over DeLand, a game that was broadcast on ESPN2, and countered that with a deflating 17-16 loss on the road to Flagler Palm Coast that ended their Class 8A playoff hopes.

Since that game, Geis said, the focus shifted from chasing the playoffs to trying to build for next year.

“Good way to finish,” Geis said. “You know, it didn’t go like we wanted [this season], but we’ve got a lot of guys coming back on defense.”

Davis, who replaced injured quarterback Parker Boehme for the season’s final three games, is part of that rebuilding project. His 30-yard touchdown pass to DeMarcus Walker put Sandalwood on the board early in the second quarter, and his score from the 2, set up by a fumble recovery by Daub, put the Saints up for good at 12-7.

Davis finished 7-of-9 passing for 126 yards and an interception.

The other piece of the Saints’ future, bulldozing sophomore back Graham, didn’t get into the end zone but gashed the Commanders just about every time he touched the ball. His second carry of the game, a 28-yarder, set up Davis’ touchdown pass to Walker.

Five of Graham’s eight carries went for first downs, and he led all players with 100 yards.

“Jacari, next year, is going to be a star,” Geis said. “He’s going to be a major college kind of player.”

The Commanders (5-5) made things interesting late, starting their final drive at their own 20 with 2:49 to play and getting as far as the Sandalwood 30.

Facing a fourth-and-8 with no timeouts and virtually no passing game to lean on, White trotted out Davidson for a field-goal try that came up well short. Davidson made a 37-yard try right before halftime.

“I played with a lot of these guys in middle school. I came back and got to play with them again this year,” said Daub, who transferred to Sandalwood from Nease this season and is ranked as one of the top recruits in the country in the 2014 class. “We’ll be back next year. We only lose three defensive starters. We’ll have another solid defense.”